I wrote this article to help you remove HillTopAds.com. This HillTopAds.com removal guide works for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

HillTopAds.com is a website which promotes online advertising service. The platform is supported by the website Rapidyl.net. When you land on HillTopAds.com, you will see the services it offers. The platform promises to improve the web traffic to selected domains and have them appear higher up in Google. If you are an advertiser, you may find this service intriguing. If not, you probably did not land on this website by your own choice. Either way, you should not acquire the offered services. Security experts have discovered that HillTopAds.com is associated to an adware program.

The presence of the rogue program will lead to various issues with your computer. First of all, your system will slow down to a crawl. Your computer will often freeze, crash, and return error messages. The degraded system performance is just a minor problem compared to the security threats the HillTopAds.com adware involves. The sinister program can lead you to malicious websites. It can also collect personal information on you and sell it to third party individuals. The proposed advertising services are just a cover-up for the actual purpose of the tool.

The actions of the HillTopAds.com adware make no sense, considering what its stated purpose is. The furtive program will display ads on your screen. They will show you bargain shopping deals for various consumer goods, like clothes, technological devices, furniture, accessories, decorations sports gear, gardening equipment, video games, and many others. The software featured on HillTopAds.com should help advertisers get their content through to end users. It does not make sense for the program to treat you as a user. This hints that there the application is not reliable.

Here is what the situation around the advertisements is. The developers of the HillTopAds.com adware support third party content in exchange for a payment. The ads contain redirect links to sponsored platforms. Every click adds a certain amount to the total sum they receive. This payment method is called the pay-per-click system. A lot of website owners pay agents to promote their content. This is a regular service, but there are some details which need to be addressed. The advertising agent needs to guarantee the reliability of the websites it links to. This is not evident with the HillTopAds.com adware.

The creators of the shady tool have not met the required security standards. The furtive program could take you to corrupted websites, infused with malware. If you contract infections, the consequences will be your burden alone. The registrant behind the HillTopAds.com website has disclaimed responsibility for security-related issues. The entity behind the domain is a company from London, England called Hilltop Ads Ltd. According to the terms and conditions and privacy policy agreements, the company is not responsible for the content of third party vendors. If you get infected with a virus by following an ad, you will have to handle the situation on your own.

Another problem surrounding the HillTopAds.com adware is data leakage. The covert program is set to track users’ browsing sessions and gather data on them. It will record your browsing history, tracking cookies, keystrokes, IP address, geographic location, area code, email, telephone number, financial credentials, user names, and passwords. The owners of the nefarious program will sell the gathered input on darknet markets without asking for your permission. Your private data can fall into the hands of cyber criminals.

The HillTopAds.com adware is distributed in several ways. The usual technique is bundling. Freeware, shareware, and pirated applications can carry the setup file of the adware. They will offer the unwanted program as a bonus. If you do not deselect it, it will be given access to your machine. Make sure you read the terms and conditions of the programs you install to your computer. A spam email can contain the setup file of the adware, hidden behind an attachment. The sender will present the attached file as a document. He could write on behalf of an existing organization to give the message legitimacy. Before opening a file from an email, check the sender’s contacts to confirm that the letter is reliable. Drive-by downloads are another entry point for the HillTopAds.com adware. Entering a compromised domain is all it takes to get you infected. You should be careful about your online sources.

HillTopAds.com Removal

Before starting the real removal process, you must reboot in Safe Mode. If you know how to do this, skip the instructions below and proceed to Step 2. If you do not know how to do it, here is how to reboot in Safe mode:

For Windows 98, XP, Millenium and 7:
Reboot your computer. When the first screen of information appears, start repeatedly pressing F8 key. Then choose Safe Mode With Networking from the options.

For Windows 8/8.1
Click the Start button, next click Control Panel —> System and Security —> Administrative Tools —> System Configuration.‌

Check the Safe Boot option and click OK. Click Restart when asked.
For Windows 10
Open the Start menu and click or tap on the Power button.

While keeping the Shift key pressed, click or tap on Restart.

Please, follow the steps precisely to remove HillTopAds.com from the browser:

Remove From Mozilla Firefox:

Open Firefox, click on top-right corner , click Add-ons, hit Extensions next.

Look for suspicious or unknown extensions, remove them all.

Remove From Chrome:

Open Chrome, click chrome menu icon at the top-right corner —>More Tools —> Extensions. There, identify the malware and select chrome-trash-icon(Remove).

Remove From Internet Explorer:
Open IE, then click IE gear icon on the top-right corner —> Manage Add-ons.

Find the malicious add-on. Remove it by pressing Disable.

Right click on the browser’s shortcut, then click Properties. Remove everything after the .exe” in the Target box.

Open Control Panel by holding the Win Key and R together. Write appwiz.cpl in the field, then click OK.

Here, find any program you had no intention to install and uninstall it.

Run the Task Manager by right clicking on the Taskbar and choosing Start Task Manager.

Look carefully at the file names and descriptions of the running processes. If you find any suspicious one, search on Google for its name, or contact me directly to identify it. If you find a malware process, right-click on it and choose End task.

Open MS Config by holding the Win Key and R together. Type msconfig and hit Enter.

Go in the Startup tab and Uncheck entries that have “Unknown” as Manufacturer.

Still can not remove HillTopAds.com from your browser? Please, leave a comment below, describing what steps you performed. I will answer promptly.